From Sea to Clouds in Ecuador
BY W. ROBERT MOORE
N THE one-day trip from Guayaquil, chief
seaport of Ecuador, to Quito, the capital,
trains climb more than 9,000 feet
through the gamut of seasons, and centuries
of pre-Spanish history.
Ecuador, named for the Equator, is really
equatorial at Guayaquil. Yet, on a clear day,
one can look northeast from the steaming hot
city and see the snowy summit of Chimborazo
rearing 20,702 feet into the sky.
Out of Desert into Jungle
Jungle, startlingly green to the eye of the
traveler who has voyaged up the parched,
rocky coastline of Chile and Peru, smothers
the flat, oozy banks and midstream islands of
the chocolate-colored Guayas. It even en
croaches on the settlements that stand on
stilts along the waterside.
From ship deck Guayaquil seems to be
floating on the river like the masses of purple
flowering water hyacinth which drift up and
down with river current and tides.
Freight barges, balsa rafts, dugout canoes,
and other small craft line the two and one
half miles of water front. Ocean liners and
tramp freighters anchor in midstream to dis
charge and take on cargo, lighters clustering
around them (pages 720, 721).
Guayaquil has been no boom town. Today,
after more than four centuries of existence,
it has only about 150,000 inhabitants.
"We've had more progress here in the last
15 years than in the previous 150," said an
English-speaking Ecuadorian who took me
under his wing when I arrived in Guayaquil.
"The Panama Canal shortened distances to
our world markets, but health improvement
has played an even greater part. People once
stayed only long enough to make their money,
then moved to some more favorable place.
Now they stay, and build."
Uphill from Guayaquil to Quito
Since Panagra (Pan American-Grace) air
lines have been established, Quito is only an
hour's flight from Guayaquil. Under new train
schedules, the train trip is made in a day.
I went first by train. Dawn was struggling
to overcome masses of black storm clouds
when we boarded the ferry for the railhead
of Alfaro (Duran), up the river and on the
opposite bank.
Chugging slowly upstream, we passed men
fishing with large fan-shaped nets from dugout
canoes and sand bars. Six steers, three swim-
ming on either side of a canoe with their
horns tied to crossbars, passed downstream
on their way to market. A boatload of bananas
barely missed our bow.
As we bumped the dock and hurried to the
cars, daylight began to detach the Andean
mountains from the clouds.
"We measure our climate by the kilometer;
you'll soon see!" said my Ecuadorian com
panion as he bade me farewell.
Between Guayaquil and Bucay, about fifty
miles away, I saw scenes such as I had known
in tropical Thailand (Siam). Flooded rice
fields, rank jungle foliage, and sugar cane or
cacao plantations cover the countryside.
Here, too, grow quantities of bananas that are
shipped to New York, California, and down
the west coast to Chile. Bamboo houses stand
on stilts along streams in this half-aquatic
land.
Sun-browned youngsters, innocent of clothes,
waved from doorways or played in the mud.
Men paddled boatloads of pineapples and
other produce along the waterways. Buzzards
sat on rooftops airing their wings.
Beyond Bucay, however, the scene quickly
changes. For here the train begins its dizzy
ascent up the steep Andean barrier. As it
climbs, dense jungles filled with fantastic
parasitic growth gradually lessen in height
and merge into subtropical verdure. This in
turn gives way to green fields.
At Palmira we were in the midst of an area
of black volcanic ash. The wind blew, and
blew cold.
Yankee Engineers Conquered the Heights
In fifty miles the snorting Baldwin locomo
tives drag the cars from an elevation of 930
feet to 10,632 feet. Twisting back and forth
over frothing, muddy rapids, the railroad
crosses 88 bridges and burrows through three
tunnels.
Here, too, is the famous Devil's Nose (Nariz
del Diablo), up the side of which the train
mounts by a series of switchbacks.
The ride fairly took my breath. As the
train zigzagged up the sheer mountain wall,
chugging alternately forward and backward
on the switches, I looked almost straight down
and saw the town of Huigra slowly dwindle to
toy size.
Yankee imagination and engineering skill
carved the ledges and laid the tracks on this
bold mountainside between 1897 and 1908.
After negotiating the first range of the